Weather Underground sold to The Weather Channel Companies.
After 17 years as an independent company, Weather Underground has been sold, and will now be part of The Weather Channel Companies (TWCC.)
Jeff Masters of Weather Underground confirmed the merger earlier today, stating:
“Back in 1995, when the newly created commercial Internet put up for sale domains with a “.com” designation, and Weather Underground, Inc. became the world’s first commercial weather web site, I could not have anticipated the wild ride that brought us to where we are at today. We registered the 2,000th domain ever taken, “wunderground.com”, in 1995, missing registering “weather.com ” by a month.
Later that year, a group of executives from The Weather Channel visited us in Ann Arbor, inquiring on how we might work together. No sale resulted, but over the years, The Weather Channel and Weather Underground have had a number of meetings to discuss a possible merger.
[…] in the past three years, Weather Underground entered into a rapid period of growth that saw our staff more than double to 57 people. With a swelling user base around the globe, and with demands for our services to be made available across so many new digital platforms like mobile phones and tablets, the board recognized the need for an even greater injection of resources, and the decision was made to merge with The Weather Channel Companies.”
There was no announcement regarding the money involved, but a sudden rainbow allegedly appeared over their corporate offices. 😀
The news was broken by Enrico Schaefer, founding partner of Traverse Legal, whose client is Weather Underground.
